LUBBOCK - Texas Tech's Double T logo is its most recognizable symbol. It's on almost every bit of kitsch the university sells or gives away to promote itself. It's how alumni show their pride in their alma mater, wherever they go.
It's also used by prison gang members to identify their affiliation with West Texas. Some go as far as to tattoo the logo on their faces.
The West Texas gang is part of the expanding Tango Blast network of prison gangs, which poses the greatest statewide gang threat in the state, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety Gang Threat Assessment released in April.
Following Tango Blast is the Texas Syndicate, which uses the University of Texas' Longhorn and the Houston Texans' logo as their logos as well, according to Lt. Billy Koontz with the Lubbock County Sheriff's Office narcotics and K-9 division.
He said face tattoos likely denote gang membership and are a rising trend among gangs.
"I would have never thought there would have been a day somebody would just put their gang tattoo on their face," said Koontz, a 20-year veteran of the Lubbock Police Department who worked for five years in the gang unit.
Perusing Lubbock County Detention Center's booking mug shots online shows inmates sporting tattoos on their necks and faces.
"What you see a lot now is the star," Koontz said. "The Latin Kings use the star and then West Texas uses the five-point star so you see a lot of people getting those stars on their faces."
These tattoos are cataloged, used as identifying marks for inmates as well as the ones they get while in jail, according to Cody Scott, the jail's chief deputy.
Scott said inmates aren't allowed to get tattoos in jail and face penalties for breaking the rules. But rules don't prevent it from happening.
"Inmates are very inventive, when they come to jail and they find different ways to create a lot of different things and one of those is to create a way of tattooing," Scott said.
Koontz has used his expertise in identifying gang tattoos as an expert witness for the Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney's Office on many occasions.
"I will go into court and testify as a gang expert and then used to we would just strip their shirt off and they'd have the person standing there and I'd tell them what everything - just basically kind of tell the jury what everything is on the guy, what it stands for, because there's tattoos that means you've killed people, robbed places, drug dealer or whatever."
Of course, not all inmates with tattoos are gang members or hardened criminals, Koontz said.
"The thing is we have to look at the whole picture," he said. "'Cause there are people that get gang tattoos that are not gang members. We have to be able to differentiate between which one's which."
He said investigators will go through an arrestee's associates and look at what they're being arrested for to see if there's a gang link.
But it can be as easy as asking someone if he is with a gang.
"If they're going to go through the trouble of getting a tattoo on them, it's kind of stupid to try and deny it," he said.
Once someone has been confirmed as a gang member, his information is shared with other Texas law enforcement agencies.
Outside prison
Gang members used to only get their tattoos in prison, Koontz said. But that's changed as tattoos became an accepted form of self-expression in the last 20 years.
Tattoos used be a way to stand out, but as more people ink their skin, it's become a way of conforming, said Alden Roberts, a sociology professor at Tech who has studied tattoos among college students.
With this acceptance, tattoo parlors are sprawling, making it easy to get them anywhere, Koontz said.
"Now you have some tattoo places, specifically here in Lubbock, these places are good places, and I've had some stuff done and they're not going to do gang tattoos for people," he said.
But they can still do them without knowing, he said.
"A lot of times, you go and get initials tattooed on you, well you know the tattoo artist may just think. 'Hey, that might be his grandmother that died,' who knows what they tell them," he said.
He said tattoos of initials are a common sign of gang membership as well as numbers used as a code for the gang's name. He said West Texas gang members will also use the region's area codes to identify themselves.
"Anytime we see numbers, that's a big sign right there," he said. "And a lot of times we have people that come from everywhere here to Lubbock so a lot of times we just have to figure out where they're from and then we have to contact officers out there and check gang databases and you know now that we have the Internet it makes it easier to look stuff up."
Being in a gang or having a gang tattoo isn't illegal.
But it doesn't help when facing a jury, Koontz said.
"Because you go to trial it's not like you can wear a nice suit and cover everything up. They're going to be looking at that and they're going to know."
Prosecutors will use a defendant's involvement in a criminal gang to enhance their punishment.
"It lets them know this is a person, he made a bad choice, let's just say to sell drugs, but he also made another choice to join a gang," he said. "And then basically I will get up there and testify what all that gang's involved in, trafficking drugs, murdering people, robbery, depending on what gang that it is. it's just basically affects their reputation."
